Promise
by the moon and the stars
Summary: "You can't just ghost out after a girl says she's in love with you." Sam/Elijah. Final scene tag.


**Promise**

 **Summary:** "You can't just ghost out after a girl says she's in love with you." Sam/Elijah. Final scene tag.

 **Disclaimer:** _How to Hang a Witch_ belongs to Adriana Mather. The following story is for entertainment purposes only. No infringement intended.

 **A/N:** Takes place immediately following the last line of the novel. Just adding a teensy bit of flavor and attempting to tie up one or two loose ends in the process. Enjoy.

* * *

 _Elijah._

His name leaves my lips like a broken seal.

The response is so quick that I half-suspect the impulse is contagious.

"Samantha."

I suck in a breath. He stands several paces away, sunlight casting a halo upon his ebony hair and highlighting every elegant line etched in my memory. Though it's only been a couple days, my eyes drink in the sight like I'm dying of thirst.

Too bad shock has me rooted to my back porch.

"How is your hand?" he asks.

I glance down. The days-old injury was a minor one and not worth half the concern he is showing. _And you'd know if you hadn't gone AWOL_ , I want to point out.

But a much different answer escapes me with a lungful of air. "I miss you."

He sighs for a different reason. "I should not be here."

Those words thaw my frozen limbs, and without thinking I scoop up the black-eyed Susan at my feet. "You don't go giving a girl flowers if you're trying to say goodbye," I joke, but we both know my heart's not really in it.

Neither is his in the reply. "We discussed this. I am not for you, Samantha. I am dead."

As though that makes any difference to me. "There's a reason I can see spirits," I argue. Even if I have no clue what that reason is.

"It is not so you can stop living. Which is what I fear will happen if this… correspondence continues. You need to mourn the loss as I never could, three centuries ago.

"Your father will arrive soon," he adds and for an instant, the #1 DAD mug clutched in my other hand feels like lead. "And I have my sister again. We each finally have what we've wanted for so long."

"And is that enough for you? Does it really have to be one or the other?" I inch forward. "I won't ask you to choose me over your sister, Elijah. I could never do that."

His relief is so sudden, so raw that it sets me back on my heels.

But by now I'm standing close enough to read the conflict in his eyes, and I understand that it isn't personal, that he can't help but view this crossroads through the lens of a centuries-old fear. His fiancée really did a number on him.

"Thank you." Carefully he gauges my expression. "But you would ask something else of me."

I nod. "A promise."

He waits.

I close the gap.

"I won't ask you to stay," I repeat, softly. "Just… don't leave without a word. Don't disappear from my life forever. Not after we just found each other."

He tucks a lock of hair behind my ear as he contemplates my request. "Samantha—"

"You can't just ghost out after a girl says she's in love with you," I blurt, but I can't help it. Desperation made me bold. "Only a complete jerk would do that."

His gaze is warm and without a hint of reproach when he whispers, "Still as uncouth as ever."

"And you're just as stubborn. Elijah, I—"

"Sam?"

The mug nearly slips from my grasp.

 _Dad._

"I thought I heard your voice," he beams from behind Elijah, who takes the cue to bow out gracefully. My gaze bounces between the two like a tennis ball at Wimbledon. I honestly don't know how to process this moment.

But the decision is made for me when I'm engulfed in a long-overdue bear hug, and when my dad releases me, my eyes feast themselves so full of the sight that this time they spill over.

My dad banishes the tears with a thumb. "I missed you too, kiddo."

"You have no idea," I manage.

Despite my hazy vision, I catch movement past his shoulder. Elijah. He's retreating, affording me more privacy with my dad.

But he does not leave.

"Is that what I think it is?"

"Huh? Oh." I shove the mug into my dad's waiting hands.

"Got it all ready for me, eh? Thanks, Sam." He nods at my other hand. "And that?"

Slowly I bring the black-eyed Susan to my nose, the subtle scent washing me with recent memory. I catch Elijah's eye as he moves further still, and the corners of his mouth lift into one of his rare smiles. I know it won't be the last he gives.

Which is why it's easy to return. "A promise."

 _ **Fin**_


End file.
